The University of York is extending its use of Dell Wyse vWorkspace to roll out applications across the institution.
The desktop virtualisation solution will be used by the university to address specialist application requirements as it migrates its desktop estate from Windows XP to Windows 7.
The first area to be addressed was the reliance of the university’s Estate Services on facilities management software based on XP. The Windows XP end-of-life had fallen before the transition of this work to mobile devices could be made, so vWorkspace was used to virtualise the environment.
In addition, specialist applications used by particular academic departments, which are rarely updated and hence not compatible with Windows 7, were delivered virtually through vWorkspace.
Wyse vWorkspace had already been used to simplify provisioning of specialist desktop environments.
"Dell has worked extremely closely with the University of York on this project," David Angwin, Marketing Director, Dell Cloud Client Computing. "As a customer who was part of our beta testing for Wyse vWorkspace, we were able to make significant enhancements following the team’s feedback.
"Education is a key sector for Dell and we are looking forward to helping the University tackle future challenges with Dell technology,"
"A virtual desktop infrastructure was a way of extending the lifecycle of legacy applications, but in a secure way," said Pritpal Rehal, Desktop and Printing Services, University of York.
"We are moving away from Windows XP, but there are applications that control the business practices of the university that do require it. Ultimately, we were looking to improve the experience for students and staff at the university.
"We know that technology is moving to the cloud and on to mobile, and we’re very aware of how the desktop might evolve over the next few years. We knew that Wyse vWorkspace was feature rich with lots of built in tools."
